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Neck Cancer Treatment

At Tampa General Hospital, our team takes a comprehensive, multispecialty approach to treatment of cancers in the head and neck, customizing each patient’s treatment plan to reflect the specific details of his or her diagnosis.

The three main forms of neck cancer treatment that we offer include:

Surgery – If a tumor has not grown extensively into the nearby tissues or lymph nodes, surgeons may attempt to remove as much of the growth from the body as possible. Minimally invasive and robotic procedures are often used for head and neck cancer surgery due to its high level of accuracy and small incision.

Radiation therapy – In some cases, radiation therapy may be the only treatment needed to destroy a small, localized tumor. In other cases, radiation therapy can help shrink a tumor before surgery or destroy any cells that might have been left in the body after an operation. No matter the goal of the treatment, our radiation oncologists, radiation therapists, and dosimetrists will carefully tailor a plan to deliver the maximum dose of radiation to the tumor while avoiding nearby healthy tissues.

Chemotherapy – Powerful medications are injected into a patient’s vein or provided orally (as a pill). As these medications travel through the bloodstream, they destroy any rapidly dividing cells. This not only has an effect on the primary tumor, but also on cancerous cells that have separated from the original lesion and spread throughout the body. Our medical oncologists will adjust the specific drugs recommended, as well as the dosages and delivery cycles, based on the precise type of cells that make up a patient’s tumor.